Greens kick off Mackellar campaign

Sydney's northern beaches community is increasingly concerned about the core Greens issues of climate change and the environment, Senator Kerry Nettle said while meeting with Mr Craige McWhirter, the Greens candidate for the seat of Mackellar, at Collaroy Beach today.

"Craige McWhirter is a tireless campaigner for the Greens and brings a fresh point of view to local and global issues", Senator Nettle said.

"Everyone is aware that the greatest challenge facing Australia is climate change. The CSIRO is predicting an increase in the severity and frequency of storms such as the ones that recently lashed Sydney", Mr McWhirter said.

"Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and now an economic adviser in the UK Government, found that the damage bill for climate change could rise to more than 20 percent of global GDP

"This will have far reaching, negative consequences for the Australian economy", Mr McWhirter said

"To avert the economic iceberg that the Howard extremist government is blithely sailing us toward, we need to take great, careful steps to steer us towards a prosperous, sustainable future. To do this we need to have sensible policies in place such as not approving any new coal mines, setting greenhouse gas reduction target of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 and significant investment in renewable energy", Mr McWhirter said.